County of Mark
County of Mark Grafschaft Mark (German) | |||||||||
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| c. 1198–1807 | |||||||||
Coat of arms
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Map of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle around 1560, County of Mark highlighted in red | |||||||||
| Status | County | ||||||||
| Capital | Hamm | ||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages, Renaissance | ||||||||
• Established | 12th century | ||||||||
• United with Cleves | 1391 | ||||||||
| 1500 | |||||||||
| 1521 | |||||||||
• To Brandenburg | 1614 | ||||||||
• Awarded to Berg | 1807 | ||||||||
• To Prussia | 1815 | ||||||||
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The County of Mark (German: Grafschaft Mark, French: Comté de La Marck colloquially known as Die Mark) was a county and state of the Holy Roman Empire in the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle. It lay south of Lippe river on both sides of the Ruhr river along the Volme and Lenne rivers.
The Counts of Mark were among the most powerful and influential Westphalian lords in the Holy Roman Empire. The name Mark derived from a small village Mark and the nearby Castle Mark, the latter was built between 1190 and 1202, both today incorporated in the unitary authority Hamm, founded in 1226 by the first Count, Adolph de la Mark. His father used the older title Altena or Berg-Altena. The county’s name is preserved in the present-day Märkischer Kreis district in lands south of the Ruhr in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. When the districts were reorganized in 1975, the former district of Altena was merged with parts of several neighboring districts to form the new Märkischer Kreis. The Märkischer Kreis district represents only the southern portion of the former county. Today, the territory of the old county is divided between Märkischer Kreis, parts of the cities of Bochum, Dortmund, Hagen, and Hamm, as well as the districts of Unna, Soest and Ennepe-Ruhr.